Did you play along with us last month? If you’re a regular photo-a-day’er or if this is your first challenge we welcome you to come and join us! This is all for fun so if you skip a day or two you can make them up later or just forget about them. No pressure! This is just a fun way to slow down and focus on the beauty in life. Every day moments in life are beautiful!

It has been a joy to see all of your fun pictures and to get to know some of you better! I can’t wait to get started looking at this month’s pictures.

How to participate:

All it takes to join in is to simply take a photo and post it on a social media site with the hashtag #EmbracingBeauty. I’m using Instagram and sometimes I’ll post them on Twitter and Facebook too. When you tag your photos with the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag they’ll join the list of photos under the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag. If you click on the “#EmbracingBeauty” it will pull up everyone’s photos who are playing along. You can see all the fun photo ideas other Embracing Beauty readers are sharing. What fun!!

Did you play along with us in December? Or did you get busy and fizzle out somewhere around the end…like I did? Ha! That’s okay. This is all for fun anyway and besides January is a new month. Please come and join us again. It has been a joy to see all of your fun pictures and to get to know some of you better!

If you haven’t played along before, don’t worry, you can jump in now! It’s okay if you miss a day…or two…or 10…it doesn’t matter. This is just a fun way to slow down and focus on the beauty in life. Every day moments in life are beautiful!

All it takes to join in is to simply take a photo and post it on a social media site with the hashtag #EmbracingBeauty. I’m using Instagram {unless they decide to mess with their TOS again} and sometimes I’ll post them on Twitter and Facebook too. When you tag your photos with the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag they’ll join the list of photos under the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag. If you click on the “#EmbracingBeauty” it will pull up everyone’s photos who are playing along. You can see all the fun photo ideas other Embracing Beauty readers are sharing. What fun!!

I’ve been a little behind on posting my photo a day photos but I’m here to catch up! I’ve been posting them on Twitter and Instagram but just not my blog. Without further ado…

Day 6 – Toys This is a picture of my husband breaking down and removing the batteries from an old toy so that we could make room for new Christmas toys.

Day 7 – Bright This is a strand of VERY bright LED lights. I’m not a fan.

Day 8 – Good Book This is a picture of one of the latest drafts of Crystal Paine’s book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget, that she sent me before it was published. It’s a great book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for practical ways to save money!

Day 9 – A Beautiful Sight This is my little sweetheart and I think she’s beautiful!

Day 10 – Christmas Tree This is the sad picture of my Christmas tree with LED lights in the middle of it. One of our strands of lights bit the dust this year and apparently very few people still sell regular old glass light bulbs. These plastic bulbs are dull looking up close while being blindingly bright and many are sharp to the touch. I am very disappointed. Oh, and to make things worse, our very bottom strand of lights just died tonight too so now we’ll have to buy more LED lights unless we buy the old fashioned lights online and those won’t arrive until after Christmas. I can’t decide what to do. Remove all the lights and put them back on more sparingly, buy a large LED strand, buy old lights online and pay an outrageous amount for quick shipping, or buy several 2 feet strands of the old lights for $5 a box at the only place we’ve found them at in town. Decisions, decisions!

Day 11 – Something Yummy

This is amazing! It tastes so much better than my poor pictures shows. This is a Moravian Sugar Cake which I was recently introduced to. It’s ridiculously good! If I find a recipes for it I’ll be sure to share it with you.

Day 12 – Sparkle

This sparkly bundle of nail polish is from Julep. I’ve enjoyed just about every bottle I’ve got from them but their glitter is out of this world. It brings out the child in me for sure!!! They have full coverage glitter, medium coverage and get this, glitter with different size sparkles! Yea, I’m hooked.

Day 13 – Someone I Love

Of course I was going to take a picture of my family! It was between my daughter and my husband and my daughter was the only one home at the moment. If you’re reading this, I love you too, Michael!!

In case you haven’t heard what all this Photo a Day talk is about, you can go here to December Photo a Day for all the information. The basic gist is that everyday throughout the month of December we’re given a specific theme to take a picture of. I’ll be taking a picture with Instagram and I’ll share my picture here on my blog. I also have a linky attached to the main post so you can link up your photo of the day that you’ve published on your blog. Plus, if you want to participate but don’t have a blog you can use the hashtag #EmbracingDecember to share on Twitter or Instagram! I hope you’ll join us!

I thought I might get behind on this December Photo a Day Challenge a day or two throughout the month but I had no idea it would be this soon. I have a good reason though!! I have contracted a nasty little illness. My doctor said that it’s a sinus and bronchial infection although I told my husband it feels more like the plague. I haven’t been sick for over two years and then I get hit with a bad cold in October and now again in December. I am very thankful to have a dear husband to take care of me, insurance and money to pay for medicine, and a sweet baby girl who always makes me smile. Now, on to my photos for day 4 & 5. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you may have already seen these because I did take them on the correct day but they didn’t make it to my blog then.

Day 4: Joyous

Doesn’t that picture truly represent the word joyous? My little girl is joyful 98% of the time. She is such a blessing to me!

Day 5: Today’s Temperature

This weather around here has been absolutely crazy lately. Yesterday was overcast and 69.5 at the time I took this picture but I’m pretty sure it reached the 70’s a day or two before. 60 & 70 degree days in DECEMBER! That’s wild!

In case you haven’t heard what all this Photo a Day talk is about, you can go here to December Photo a Day for all the information. The basic gist is that everyday throughout the month of December we’re given a specific theme to take a picture of. I’ll be taking a picture with Instagram and I’ll share my picture here on my blog. I also have a linky attached to the main post so you can link up your photo of the day that you’ve published on your blog. Plus, if you want to participate but don’t have a blog you can use the hashtag #EmbracingDecember to share on Twitter or Instagram! I hope you’ll join us!

For those who haven’t heard the tragic news, the Bulldogs ran out of time in Saturday’s game before they could get in another play. They clock ran out and they lost. By a mere 5 yards. It was heartbreaking! They went from being a #3 team playing the #2 team and because they lost, that close game, it bumped them down to the #7 team. I hope many of you are supporting a much merrier red for your photo a day picture!

In case you haven’t heard about our December Photo a Day Challenge and you wonder what on earth it is I’m talking about, let me tell you a little more.

Every day throughout the month of December I’ll be taking a picture with Instagram {feel free to follow me there too!} and I’ll share my picture here on my blog. I’ll have a linky attached to the Photo a Day Challenge page so that you can link up your photo of the day that you’ve published on your blog. Plus, if you want to participate but don’t have a blog you can use the hashtag #EmbracingDecember to share on Twitter or Instagram! I’m loving the awesome pictures that everyone is coming up with. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll join us! It’s a lot of fun!

One of our favorite Christmas movies is Frosty the Snowman. I thought the frosted snowman doughnut captured it perfectly. 🙂

Every day throughout the month of December I’ll be taking a picture with Instagram {feel free to follow me there too!} and I’ll share my picture here on my blog. I’ll have a linky attached to each day’s post so that you can link up your photo of the day that you’ve published on your blog.

Plus, if you want to participate but don’t have a blog you can use the hashtag #EmbracingDecember to share on Twitter! I’d love to see what creative pictures you come up with!

I know that December can be a busy, busy month but it can also be one of the best months of the year! Every year I try my hardest to slow down and enjoy December but before I know it it’s the new year. This year, I thought it would be fun to host a December Photo of the Day Challenge. Every day throughout the month of December I will take a picture with Instagram {feel free to follow me there too!} and I’ll share my picture here on my blog. I was going to have a linky attached to each day’s post but I that became confusing so I’ve added a linky to this post so that you can link up your photo of the day that you’ve published on your blog. My goal is for this to be a reminder to myself, and everyone, to slow down and enjoy each day we’re given. Sure, the lights will inevitably get tangled but what a beautiful picture it would make! : )

If you feel up to sharing your photos with me but don’t have a blog, feel free to use the hashtag #EmbracingDecember on Twitter or Instagram! I’d love to see what creative pictures you come up with!

Doesn’t that sound like fun? We can get a peak into everyone’s life, support each other’s blogs, and most importantly take time to enjoy our family and remember the real reason for the Christmas season. I hope you’ll join me!! Come and link up below!

Hi, I’m Ashley!

I'm a stay at home mom to one adorable little girl and I have the most amazing husband! We're a typical family that struggles with finances, priorities, and all the other challenges that life throws our way. I’m passionate about glorifying God and making the most of each and every day here on earth. Read more